The Victorian Book of The Dead Post Mortem (Momento Mori) Picture Album I Created 10-08-12

I was doing some research on the late 1800's and during the 1900's the Victorian's wanted to embrace a last photo with their loved one.They would take pictures of their recently deceased loved one. These are some of the pictures I came across while doing my research. Some of the pictures look very life like and even have their eyes open. In some photos they would use stands to hold the dead person in place. Some would sit, stand, or lie down. In one of the photos there is string or something around the wrist of the baby to hold it in place. In another photo you can tell there is a box under the child's clothes to make the face stay in place.They also took pictures of their beloved pet dogs also. I find these picture to be very interesting, some are kinda creepy and strange but it is amazing to see these pictures. They have also been called Memento Mori photographs. Victorian era childhood mortality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might have been the only image of the child the family ever had. The earliest post-mortem photographs are usually close-ups of the face or shots of the full body and rarely include the coffin. The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike. Children were often shown in repose on a couch or in a crib, sometimes posed with a favorite toy or other plaything. It was not uncommon to photograph very young children with a family member, most frequently the mother. Adults were more commonly posed in chairs. Flowers were also a common prop in post-mortem photography of all types.Nineteenth-century photograph of a deceased child with flowers The effect of life was sometimes enhanced by either propping the subject's eyes open or painting pupils onto the photographic print, and many early images (especially tintypes and ambrotypes) have a rosy tint added to the cheeks of the corpse.Later examples show less effort at a lifelike appearance, and often show the subject in a coffin. Some very late examples show the deceased in a coffin with a large group of funeral attendees; this type of photograph was especially popular in Europe and less common in the United States. A variation of the memorial portrait involves photographing the family with a shrine (usually including a living portrait) dedicated to the deceased.R.I.P. to all the people in the photographs.